The episode isn’t so much a lead-up to the showdown promised by its title as a delay of game.
The episode’s saving grace lies in the contrast that the series continues to develop between the two young women of the Stark family.
The unifying element of “The Laws of God and Men” may be the profound silence of the show’s architecture.
Only Michelle MacLaren’s brilliantly composed coda with the White Walkers sticks in the memory.
As with any episode of television that bears Michelle MacLaren’s directing credit, “Oathkeeper” does not merely look good.
The Sansa/Cersei contrast sets the tone of the episode, which focuses on women more than any other hour of the series to date.
True to the more muted tone of the premiere, the second episode offers minimal indication that anything is wrong.
The inter-scene cutting here slightly lingers on every place the camera visits, now searching for someone who appears to know where to go next.
Game of Thrones finally feels liberated from its own extensive mythology and now moves with thrilling fury and purpose.
TV better than movies? Not really, but at least television will let you see Michael Douglas stroking Matt Damon’s leg hair.
The series feels like it has some firm footing and a newfound sense of certain direction that was lacking intermittently in the second season.
Dialogue choices you make along the way shift the narrative ever so slightly based on a Mass Effect-esque paragon/renegade continuum.
After last week’s thematically spastic episode, it’s refreshing to see that a simple and direct, albeit unambitious, theme unites the various plot strands here.
David Benioff and D.B. Weiss try too hard to introduce an elemental aspect to Game of Thrones’s focus on the nature of power.
The second season of Game of Thrones really hit its stride tonight with “Garden of Bones.”
With tonight’s episode, the writers of Game of Thrones continue the trend of organizing each episode of season two around a different theme.
After last week’s remarkable season premiere of Game of Thrones, “The Night Lands” is a bit of a letdown.
The most exciting thing about the season-two premiere of Game of Thrones is its refreshing sense of focus.